When I was much younger, I played piano and French horn with a band called Le Loup. NPR named us the top unknown band of the year and our longest tour comprised of 62 shows over the course of 90 days in five countries.
After that tour, I moved to Seattle to work with El Centro de la Raza in the Hope for a Youth Program which combined civil rights history with music instruction for middle and high school students which inspired me to get a Masters in Social Work with a focus on group facilitation.
After my masters I worked as an environmental organizer preventing the construction of a coal export terminal at the port of Grays Harbor County. After that campaign I was recruited to work as a policy analyst and researcher focused on ports and served as a primary researcher in the airport living wage campaign in the City of SeaTac. In 2014, I was appointed to a City of Seattle commission to raise the minimum wage to $15 and served as the policy director for the coalition moving this campaign. For this work I was recognized by the City of Seattle for my work to advance civil rights and was named one of the 15 people who should run Seattle. After these campaigns, I trained dozens of other people across the country on the research methods we applied in the SeaTac and Seattle campaigns.
In order to support implementation of the minimum wage, I co-founded and directed the Fair Work Center. A few years later, I returned to Puget Sound Sage and served as their executive director. While leading these organizations I taught classes at the University of Washington and Seattle University Schools of Social Work and supported four different leadership development programs committed to increasing the power and profile of people of color.
For over a decade, I was so fearful about a future with worsening climate conditions, increased income inequality, and continued racism that I worked non-stop. But then I began losing my hair, my skin was constantly cracking and bleeding, and I woke up most mornings with panic attacks. I was burnt out, jaded, overwhelmed and miserable. I stopped doing anything that brought me joy; instead, I worked until my body and my spirit cracked open and I had to find another way.
In a peak period of stress, my mother gave me a sound bowl. This practice of playing singing bowls connected me instantly to a sense of ease, balance, and harmony and helped me process generations of fear, shame and grief. I began writing songs again until music began to flow from my voice and my spirit again. I quit smoking with relative ease, my hair grew back, and I woke up feeling excited about my day. I began to feel and understand how different notes resonated in my body and also how those notes affect the bodies and spirits of other people.
This shift transformed my life and how I approach service and work. Building off of over 15 years of experience moving organizational and systems change – I now support people, teams, and organizations in adapting to change, building connection, healing from burnout, moving through shame and fear, defining core values and purpose, finding connection and joy, and processing collective grief.
